"I can't speak of wives or women," said the musician. "There's so little memory left, mostly music. But you've been subconsciously humming a tune for days—and I must tell you that Beethoven didn't write anything called Erica. The correct title is Eroica."
"One fall don't mean nothing, it's always the best two out of three. The way I see it, you gotta get up. Get close to them, hold them tight, or they'll throw you outta the ring."
"This is something that can't be figured. There are some odds no one can live by. You'll have to solve this one yourself."
He sat there, not moving. They were with him always, but sometimes they weren't much help.
The plane would land on the other side of the continent. He had little money, but he could get in touch with Interplanet and they would advance him the fare back. Unfortunately, such a move would take time. There would be schedules to juggle, to say nothing of the ride back. A mere matter of hours on a fast ship—yet what if that was too long?
He got to his feet and went forward. "You can't go in there," said the stewardess.
He looked past her into the pilot's compartment. It was securely locked from this side though not on the other. He glanced down at the girl. It was a tradition that stewardesses were gorgeous creatures, though the tradition was simply not true any longer. In an age of space exploration, air travel had dispensed with glamor. But for unfathomable reasons, this stewardess was a throwback to the old days. If she didn't quite achieve real beauty, she came close enough so that no healthy male could conceivably object to her nearness.
Merrol could take the keys away from her, but she'd scream and a dozen men would come leaping to her rescue. He didn't care for the odds.
He had met three women and had he misjudged the effect of the new himself on them? First Erica—her behavior had been strange, considering that, even from the first, she must have doubted he was her husband. Then the receptionist—she had gone out of her way to get him into Crander's office when the latter was upset by the disappearance of a patient. And finally, the pathetic Miss Jerrems, who had thawed and would have descended to crooked schemes, had he encouraged her. Was this some form of pity or something quite different—or did it matter at all as long as they were not indifferent? There was a way to find out.